


Nestlings

by InterNutter



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Baby Birds AU, Gen, Kidfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2019-10-09 01:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17397731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterNutter/pseuds/InterNutter
Summary: The main crew are kids and everything else is pretty much dictated by my whims to have cute family fluff whilst also fighting crime. Stories collected from the larger Tumbl Into TAZ and Still Tumbl'd Still TAZ [and likely following collections] and presented in no particular order.Based on prompts from my Tumblr (internutter) where my Ask Box is always open. Even to Anons.





	1. Preamble

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The Adventure Zone in general and the Balance Arc in particular belong to the marvellous McElboys and Dad. I just play with their toys. Like - a LOT.

AN: Yet another instance of @dualityandsuch egging me on because she’s the only one who knows what the Baby Birds AU even is. I see you hiding there. So. In brief:

 

* The Hunger doesn’t exist  
* The Relics don’t exist  
* Bureau of Benevolence does?  
* August McDonald adopted Killian [MAYBE?]  
* Killian marries Carey Fangbattle  
* They adopt tiny twins - BB Lup & Taako [Lulu and Koko] age 8-10?  
* They get Sellsnow Farm via estate auction from the lingering Starlights [Grunkle Taako’s kids & grandkids] who have already disavowed relation to the twins because assholes  
* The estate wards don’t react to the twins and the Sweetflips Moms work out what’s up. Fortunately, legal adoption includes them into the family.  
* Surviving Starlights sued for fraud (they deserve it) which funds the estate restoration back to the country farm it once was.  
* Twins grow into young teens via Terrible Elf Larvae Shenanigans. BB Lup transitions as soon as her nature is confirmed [like one year after she realises who she is] and the family budget takes a suckerpunch because the spell is hella expensive.  
* Carey and Killian take turns adventuring, alternating with raising their Elf Larvae. Include Elf Practice gag  
* Teen Twins in some kind’a boarding school that isn’t quite hell but is pretty snobbish and has some shitty rules that the twins don’t like [because of course]  
* Somewhere in the previous three points, the Twins start getting into solving crimes somehow.  
* Tell their tales to Young!Lucretia, who chronicles their tall tales and turns them into an adventure series called The Terrific Twins.  
* Series is a fucking hit. Whoops.  
* BB Angus shows up. 4YO sweet baby genius, picked on because orphan in cardboard shoes.   
* L&T remember their time in a govt foster shelter and adopt the boy at school. Take him home for Candlenights  
* Moms find out that this might not be a legal thing to do, contact the school and find out that nobody really cares for this sweet, tiny orphan boy.  
* Boom. Third child. Babyest brother. Grats, kiddo, you got two moms, two big siblings, and all four of them are gonna teach you how to cook, ride deer, and speak a lot more languages than you bargained on. Yay!  
* Terrific Twins becomes Terrific Trio. More proactive since they’re no longer stumbling into trouble, but actively finding it thanks to genius babyest brother being a detective.  
* Somehow run into Magnus on an adventure. He’s “the dog”.  
* Merle is the shitty teacher who really shouldn’t be teaching. Chief reason why the Trio can scoot out of school and get up to shenanigans.  
* Principal Davenport initially tries to stop them, or at least make it clear that this sort of horseshit is Dangerous Beans and they are children… Children deserve safety, etc. etc.  
* When Angus argues, “Isn’t helping to capture criminals making the world safer, sir?” Dav just… gives up. Starts helping them both covertly and overtly.  
* Carey and Killian are both impressed and horrified. Can and will show up to rescue their doofus kids. “For people who are so smart, you lot find yourselves in a LOT of dumb situations.”  
* Encounter Krav and Barry whilst investigating MegaBigBad. Lup has crush on Nerdy young Barold and gets shy and flustered. Taako and Krav pretty much double-entendre battle from the get-go.  
* Love reforms the villains arc. More accurately, love reforms the minions of the villains and they find a way to get around MegaBigBad’s threats [possibly by short-circuiting them?] {Honestly, is there a villain threat that can’t be completely dissolved by coming clean and being determined to be a better person in future?}  
* Random shenanigans henceforth with all the faves, fluff, cuddles, and smooches for all!  
* And that’s the plan for the entire thing.


	2. Chapter 2

“…doonts, doonts durn-dun, doonts, doonts durn-dun…”

“Koko, stop singing your own theme music.”

“Shuttup.”

“You shuttup,” said Lulu.

A muffled voice from within Koko’s bag said, “Please, sir and ma’am, could you both hush?”

The twins instinctively clapped their hands on each others’ mouths. Right. They had to do this without their moms finding out. Or at least, they had to do this without their moms finding out  _right now._  Bickering about shit was the easiest way for two hyper-competent super-agents from the Bureau of Benevolence to find out that their adopted kids were stealing babies before they were anywhere close to Elven maturity.

They shared a telepathic Look, and got on with sneaking an orphan into their home.

Angus McDonald, four-year-old orphan, was in the pocket spa inside Koko’s bag of holding. With any luck, he would remain undetectable to the estate wards until he was somehow officially adopted into the family.

They were still working on that part of the plan, to be honest. Hell, they were still working on step one - get Angus inside the wards without their moms finding out.

They made it into the house, proper, a gigantic construction moulded into a living tree by generations of Elves over possibly millennia. So far, so good. They used the less-popular pathways to get to their room, and finally opened the pocket spa once behind that particular closed door.

Angus emerged, soaking wet and heavily perfumed. “Thank goodness. Everything was spilling in there.”

“So take a bath in the ensuite,” said Koko.

“We got some old clothes you can use,” added Lulu.

“We’ll smuggle you some food in a few.”

“Hell, we’ll cook you some food, babe.”

Koko wrapped the dripping boy up in a large towel and an equally big hug. “It’s gonna be okay, kiddo. We promise.”

*

Killian saw everything. The twins cooking way more than they usually would, even for a post-school feast. Loading up bowls and containers with enough to feed maybe three people or more.

She didn’t confront her kids, but rather went to her wife Carey, who was busy with post-mission paperwork in her office.

“The twins are up to something,” she said.

“It’s  _them,_  said Carey. “When are they  _not_  up to something?”

“Wanna make sure it’s nothing nefarious?”

“Only if you fill out the rest of this field report for me.”

“Done and done.”

“You certainly have been,” she high-fived Killian on the way out, and went Stealth.

*

Softly, softly, catchee… two young Elves who had a habit of finding trouble before it was lost. Carey was quieter than a shadow as she crept after the twins. It had been half a decade since she’d last caught them at something nefarious, so they were way beyond due. Either that or they were getting better at being completely sneaky.

She didn’t know whether to be proud of them or pissed off.

“Feeling better, kiddo?” That was Koko.

“Yes, sir, thank you. These clothes kind’a fit where they touch, though, sir.” That… was a complete stranger. A very young sounding complete stranger.

“I’ll find you something with drawstrings, babe, gimmie a mo,” that was Lulu.

“Wow, ma’am, I’ll never be able to eat all  _that,”_  said the suspiciously young stranger.

“That’s what all the Preservation Boxes are for. So you’re like… set whenever you’re hungry,” said Lulu.

“Boom. Instant food security,” said Koko.

_Aw shit,_  thought Carey. She moved closer to their room. Okay. So. They had someone with them, and that someone was likely hungry. Someone who didn’t belong here. Yet.

Since they sounded so young, they had to come from Miller Academy.

_They’re too young to be stealing babies, what the hell are they up to?_

In just a few more steps, she saw for herself.

There was a very small half-elven lad, darker in hue than the twins, somewhere in the middle of some old clothing that was one good sneeze away from falling off him. Which only made him look even smaller.

There were the twins, getting him to try samples of their cooking. Being good hosts but not -say- early bloomers who had had an ‘interesting episode’ and come home with a freshly-adopted kid.

Nope. They were going for a more defacto adoption.  _He followed us home and he needs one, moms. Can we keep him?_  Yeah. This was seventeen colours of bad.

Carey cleared her throat, causing the twins to jump in front of the young stranger in a protective manner. “You have five minutes to explain yourselves, kids. Then we’re calling Miller’s.”

“Please don’t send me back in there, ma’am, the twins only brought me here because I didn’t wanna go back to the orphanage.”

Well shit. He’d just said the magic words. “All of you. Living room. Family discussion."

Lulu patted the kid on the shoulder and said, “Chin up. We’re not dead yet.”

Yikes. Now  _that_  was a blast from the past…

*

“Miller Academy, what’s the sitch?”

“Yeah, this is Killian Fangbattle. One of Lulu and Koko’s moms? Yeah. Uhm. Our two came back home with a third? Are you missing anyone? Like… who’s supposed to be staying there?”

Merle flipped through some paperwork. “Oh. Uh. We only have one kid who was staying. Angus… McDonald. Orphanage kid on the grant.”

“So he is from the orphanage? We’re not in any legal trouble for having him at our place, are we?”

Merle looked at the paperwork with a magnifying glass. “They won’t even miss him, and we won’t either. Tell you what. You keep him for the holidays and we can send you a cut of what the orphanage is paying us to keep him out of their halls.”

The caller hung up.

*

Killian slammed the Stone of Farspeech onto the counter. It took all her strength not to swear. Ten deep breaths. She had to control her anger around a kid from the orphanages. It never did to be angry around kids like that.

“Okay,” she said at length. “Carey? Babe? We’re having another baby.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:  
> I love the baby birds AU!! mostly cause I'm a sucker for adorable and funny twin shenanigans. Could we see more of this AU?

The twins flourished in any environment that was away from the orphanage. The further they got from those chilly, urine-soaked and mould-infested walls, the healthier they got.

Which was part of the reason why Carey and Killian bid on the old, Elven farm in the first place. It was a run-down old place but the Mountain Ygdrassi that was the main building was still alive and the estate grounds held some promise of being returned to beauty.

What they hadn’t expected was the wards that prevented most people from inspecting the interior, or doing anything related to renovations. But that was another story for another time.

The twins breezed through the wards as if they were nothing but early morning mist, and an investigation revealed that they were the legal inheritors of the house, mountain fastness, estate grounds and all. Which was  _another_  story for another time[1].

The good news was that Elven wards recognised that family wasn’t always genetically related, and that love bonds overwhelmed legal ones. Therefore, once the twins trusted their new, adopting parents, they too could pass through the wards without trouble.

Of course, the paperwork was so much slower than that. Demanding visits and inspections and reams upon reams of forms to fill, bureaucratic hurdles to leap, and red tape hoops to leap through.

The twins were almost seven, and spending less and less time in the orphanage. This would be their first complete year in the care of Carey and Killian Fangbattle.

The good news was: the twins were getting used to having people who cared for them and wished to keep them.

The bad news was exactly the same as the good news, because both Lulu and Koko could be up to  _anything_  whenever they were quiet.

Carey and Killian both got accustomed to the noises of children. Which screams meant “I’m legitimately hurt/in danger,” and which ones were screaming for the sake of screaming. Which levels of crashing cacophony were worth investigating and which ones were simple horsing around.

They were still learning about what a hazard Being Quiet was.

Killian had taken a few Stealth lessons from her lovely Dragonborn wife, and used them as she looked for their kids. They had been entirely too quiet for entirely too long, so it was way past time to check on them.

She found them in the Big Kitchen, one perched on the other’s shoulders, and the higher twin at just the right height to raid the cookie jar. Which was exactly what they had been doing before she found them.

She folded her arms, anticipating a rain of horseshit from her boys[2] in just a few seconds. “You two  _do_  know that those are for treats and not meals, right?”

They froze, Lulu with one cookie in hand, Koko halfway ready to bolt.

“We can explain,” said Koko, hurriedly.

Killian nodded and said, “I can wait.”

Lulu, a step ahead of his brother, started putting cookies back into the jar. “We didn’t want to bother you,” he said.

“We’re used to foraging for ourselves, y’know?” said Koko. “We’ve only been in the orphanage for like a year, so…”

“Also we don’t know your plans for the stuff in the pantry,” said Lulu. “Or the ice box[3].”

Wow. That was almost plausible horseshit. Killian was impressed. “You  _are_ allowed to ask if you have any ideas for cooking a nice meal. Your mom and I could even help.”

The last of the cookies returned, Lulu put the lid back on the jar. “We… we’re -uh- we just…”

Koko sighed. Slumped a little in defeat. “We wanted cookies, okay?”

They flinched in unison, anticipating any number of things that the asshole side of the family had done to them before they became runaways. Killian didn’t let her anger towards those unseen Elves show on her face or in the way she moved.

“I know,” she said. “Everyone wants cookies. The thing is, you two  _need_  more than just cookies to eat.” She hugged Lulu off of his brothers shoulders. “It’s okay to ask for stuff, okay? We’re here to make sure you grow up healthy and happy. In that order.” She scooped up Koko into her other arm. “Okay?”

Koko was the more likely to be depressed about things. He was a natural pessimist, an attitude only enforced by the sheer volumes of suck that had landed on the both of them since they were practically babies. “…we’re never getting cookies,” he mumbled.

“We didn’t say that,” said Carey, entering the big kitchen. She wrapped her lithe, blue-ish arms around all three of them. “Cookies are for after a healthy dinner, okay? That’s the rule. Your mama and I can follow it, and so should you.”

Killian carried their boys over to the Aga that nestled in the ancient hearth. “Since you’re hungry, how about we cook up a Mess together? Everyone picks an ingredient and we try to make it work.”

Smiles won out on their dappled faces. Koko went for the honeycomb and Lulu went for the chillies. It looked like tonight was going to be another Sweet’n’Spicy Mess for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] See Over the Meadow and Through the Woods… for the basic shape of it.
> 
> [2] My headcannon is that Lup/Lulu wasn’t aware of her true identity before age 10. In this universe it might even be age 8. Either way, she has neither realised nor told anyone yet.
> 
> [3] What people had before they invented refrigerators.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FoxNinja asked:
> 
> This AU sounds so precious. Now I'm trying to figure out how the Terrific Trio meets Magnus. Were they investigating a dog show? Missing dogs? A seemingly unrelated art theft that somehow has Magnus investigating the same place at the same time because he is trying to find his lost/missing dog? I do need to know more on that.
> 
> And Merle and Davenport have the best roles in this AU. It fits them so much, I love it!

 

It wasn't the most glamorous of cases, but Ango would literally take any case that crossed his path and their moms tended to frown on them getting involved with gruesome murders, serial killers, and the kind of thieves who left bodies in their wakes. Compared to those, finding some rich lady's pampered pooch should have been small beans. Easy peasy. Simpler than Simon.

'Should', unfortunately, is not 'is'.

On one hand, the seven-year-old Ango was great at finding and following clues. There were days when he made both twins - ten years his senior - feel like rank amateurs despite their additional years of experience with stumbling into adventures and messing up someone else's nefarious plots. What Angus did was give them direction, purpose, and an increased chance of winding up grounded for finding someone else's dastardly plot and potentially wrecking a Bureau of Benevolence op to end it once and for all.

On the other hand, they wound up grounded a lot more often since they started going out on cases with their babyest brother Ango.

Which was why they were hesitant, cautious, and careful when entering the warehouse to search it for further clues. This was the fifth one they'd checked out this day and might be as big a wash as all the others, but that was never an excuse to get sloppy. Besides, Mom Carey would be vexed, upset, and very disappointed if they were ever caught picking locks. Specifically, she would be upset that they were _caught._

They crept in quietly. Since they were Elves and half-Elven in the case of Ango, they had a natural boost to any stealth checks and they used it to full advantage. Scurrying from stack to stack of wooden crates or lurking in the shadows of free-standing shelving as they scoped the place out. There's a certain feel to abandoned places and this one didn't have it. There may be dust on the floor, but the tracks in it were relatively new, and no cobwebs were in any of the  paths from the door to the so-far unseen centre.

There was also a safe with a suspicious lack of dust or cobwebs on it. Someone came in here to stash something. Not a rich lady's dog, but definitely something interesting. They hunkered behind some crates so that Ango could take notes on what he'd found so they could report to their moms. If anything suspect was going on here, their moms could tell the Bureau, and the Bureau would stamp it out tout suite.

They didn't get that far, though. Because, as they were hunkering, a small terrier pup found them and started treating them like long-lost friends. Including a vigorous amount of wiggling because their stumpy little tail couldn't quite express their overwhelming joy at finding people, a small amount of pee because they _were_ a puppy, and an excessive amount of yapping.

There was an urgent amount of shushing and whispered commands, none of which made a jot of difference to the pup.

"MAGNUS RUSHES IN!"

A clatter of feet and a young humanman bounded over the crates to crash into the twins, roll into Ango, and wind up upside-down, tangled in some shelving that wobbled ominously for more than a few minutes. The pup bounded over to lick the young humanman teen in the face and wee on the floor a little.

The twins froze, ears moving every which way to detect if there was anyone else in the vicinity.

"Holy shit. Elves."

"SSSHH!"

More ear twitching. The twins decided that things were quiet enough to go back to whispering.

"What the fuck, broceph?" Koko demanded.

The boy, still upside-down and tangled in the shelving, pointed a finger at them and said, "Halt, evil doers! I am here to hinder your heinous plot."

Lulu looked to Koko, who shrugged. "Okay, sweetheart. Few things. One - we're not evil doers. We're here investigating a crime. Two - there's no evil plot. Three - how the fuck do you think you're going to stop anyone by yelling as you rush them?"

"Four," added Ango, who had finished taking notes, "you appear to be stuck there, sir."

The humanman wriggled, making the shelves wobble ominously again.

"Don't. Do that again, m'kay?" Koko whispered. "We'll help you, just... no yelling and no sudden moves."

"Yeah, we have a vested interest in remaining unsquished, m'fella," added Lulu.

He quieted the pup and seemed to be the only one who could. "Magnus Burnsides," he whispered. "Who are you three?"

"I'm Lulu, this is Koko, and that's Ango."

"We fight crime," supplied Ango.

They carefully extracted Magnus from the shelving. Once standing up he was nearly as tall as the twins despite being some three years their junior. "I'm tracking down a bunch of baddies who are abducting pups and small dogs from the street. This is Bait. I've been following him around. And training him a little."

"Bait?" said Koko. "Really?"

"I only found him today and Stalking-horse is a little bit wordy for such a tiny doggo." He stared at the twins. "Say, are you two related? You kind'a look a lot alike."

Ango rolled his eyes. He knew what a question like that would cue.

"Wow. Another humanman who thinks all Elves look alike," sighed Koko. "What a shocker."

"And then he asked if we're related because he thinks we have to be," tutted Lulu.

"What a speciesist."

"I bet he thinks we all ride deer and do archery."

"Or make cookies in a house grown out of a tree."

"Or have a pot of gold somewhere."

"Miss, that's leprechauns," Ango tried to interrupt.

"Or steal babies."

"Or turn people into hideous beasts because they didn't want to kiss us."

Magnus was close to tears. "...i don't think any of those things, i was just tryn'a be friendly," he whimpered.

Lulu patted him in the arm. "There, there, dear. We're just goofin' on ya."

"We're twins. We started off identical but Lulu had to improve on perfection." Koko then gestured at Ango. "He's our babyest brother, by the way."

Magnus stared at Ango, then the twins, then back at Ango.

"I'm adopted," said Ango.

The twins gasped, feigning shock and dismay. "Who told you?"

Magnus was grinning. "You're funny. I like you."

Lulu's ears twitched. "E'rybody shaddup. Someone's coming." They scurried into a more concealed area. Twins, baby brother, Magnus, and dog together. Huddled up in a space almost too small to take them. Soon, the pup became a squirming force of nature determined to lick every face present and widdle on everything in reach.

Footsteps and voices. "We should move to a different city. Scuttlebutt has it that there's detectives looking into us and the bloody Bureau is everywhere and in everything."

"The boss said thirty more mutts so we're getting thirty more mutts."

"...holy shit," breathed Magnus.

Ango was busy taking notes.

"This trap's no good. Nothing can get to it," said one.

Lulu peeked and started using Elven Sign Language. _Three of them. Two roughs, one suit. They've lain traps in this warehouse like we found in the others. Roughs wearing common clothes. Suit looks like Neverwinter make. Dark sunset blue. Nice shoes._ She ducked back down.

"We should book. I got the feeling we're being watched."

"Take it easy," said one of the goons. "Bureau ain't found out about this part yet."

The Bureau would, and they'd do it by tomorrow. This was looking like way more than a missing pet case.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dualityandsuch said:  
> And Baby Birds angst.

Koko clung to Lulu like his life depended on it. His twin did the same. There was a big Orc lady and a slightly smaller Dragonborn and both of them were the type that some other kids said would fatten up and  _eat_  little teeny Elves like them. Personally, Koko wouldn’t mind the ‘fattening up’ part, but he didn’t want to end up as anyone else’s stew.

This was a home visit, according to the officials. One week away in someplace called Star River, then back to the bland, grey chill of the orphanage for assessment. Koko knew what ‘assessment’ meant. It meant a standing naked in a cold, clinical room while entire bunches of people poked and prodded at him and took blood and asked questions and tutted at his answers and made him pee into small containers and he never knew if anything was right.

Assessment was where they pulled him away from Lulu so hard that they both had bruises for a week and scrubbed him raw and shaved his head. Koko  _hated_  assessment.

The Dragonborn - Mrs Fangbattle - was chattering nonstop while her Orc wife drove the carriage. Koko hardly paid attention to it. Most of it was about some legal tangle involving the place they were going to. Old wards and farmland and some estate auction or other horseshit. He was just focussed on holding Lulu for all the time they had left.

Lulu whispered into his ear, in  _Us,_  just to be sure,  _“We’re not dead yet.”_

Koko knew Lulu meant it as reassurance, but he couldn’t help thinking of it as an impending threat. Like they only had hours left to them. Like they were destined to be dead later.

He flinched when a huge, Orcish hand petted his shaved head, then hated himself for purring at the contact. He shrank away from the touch and watched out the corner of his eye as an Orc hand that could easily crush his whole head went back to gently grasping the reins.

“It’s always like this,” said the Orc. The other Mrs Fangbattle. “Too scared of the unknown to give anything or anyone a chance. I’ve been there. I’d hoped things had changed, but… they haven’t.”

He had no idea what they’d meant about that. He and Lulu had had scant time with these two at all. Now the orphanage trusted them to take him and Lulu away to who-knew-where to do gods-knew-what and…

Wait.

Koko looked again, startled. He picked out the next one a mile further along the road and pointed it out to Lulu. The symbols may dance for him, but Lulu could make them stand still by holding his[1] fingers just so. Koko could never make them behave like that. Yet another way in which Lulu was the better twin. Not that he’d ever say that out loud.

“Lulu! Lookit.” He switched to  _Us_  after that little stumble and said,  _“Do the finger trick. That’s gotta be a marker for Grampa’s place!”_

Lulu looked. Waited until the stone was close enough and did the finger trick. Neither of them could read Elven, but they remembered the symbols on those markers.  _“It is! It is! We’re headed for Grampa’s village! We can jump off and hide in the safety holes and steal food off’a the guests and they’d never get to us because of the family wards. Koko, you’re a genius!”_

“Hello…” said Mrs Fangbattle. The blue one. “You see something familiar? Have you been here before?”

They went back to their huddle, and guarded silence. They couldn’t let the plan out where these two Elf-eaters could foil it. They had to bide their time and wait.

* * *

 

Carey jumped a little when the twins bolted off the carriage and ran for the campsite, hand in hand. “Wait,” she shouted. “There’s dangerous wards all over–”

The twins just breezed past them like they belonged there.

“Well. That’s unusual,” said Killian in an epic level of irony. “They’re the first ones besides the Starlights who could just cruise through those wards.”

Carey sighed. “Well. They belong there. It might make them feel better about us?”

“No, love. This is bad. They belong there. Which means they’re related to the Starlights. Which means either they or the orphanage are guilty of fraud. And if it’s them, they’re also guilty of criminal neglect.”

“Ooohhh…” Carey let that all sink in. “Well, shit. Okay. It’s my turn to call the Bureau lawyers. You get a good old camp stew going. The kids are likely to hide in that tree until boredom sets in, right?”

“Maybe,” Killian allowed. “I’ll give them a couple of hours, anyway.”

The time almost flew by. Killian spent most of it halting what she was doing and staring at the Mountain Ygdrassi castle in the hopes of seeing two small, Elven forms turning up anywhere. She couldn’t help worrying that they’d found some ancient Elven trap or fallen prey to some wild creature living in the labyrinthine expanse of tree and burrow. They were skinny enough to slide right down the kludgie-holes and get trapped in the noissome oubliette at the tree’s roots…

Finally, when the arbitrary time limit was up, she picked up one of her smaller weapons and adventuring gear and announced, “Fuck it. I don’t care  _what_  those wards do to me, I need to make sure our kids are safe.”

A little known fact about Elven wards. When designed to secure the safety and protection of the family, they have a rather loose and inclusive definition of ‘family’. In brief, Killian had just said the magic words.

Not that she cared about any of that. Her first priority was the pair of tiny children presumably lost in the confounding tangle of warrens and hollows that was inside the tree. She charged in, more worried about them than herself. Prepared to take on any threat within those ever-growing walls.

She found them curled up in a cote off the ground floor family area. A space just big enough to hold the both of them and keep them out of Killian’s reach. Safe and sound.

“Oh thank the gods,” she breathed. “Lulu, Koko… this place has been abandoned for years. There could be snakes and other things in the small spaces. Please come on out? I’m worried about you.”

They boggled at her like she’d grown two heads. There was a hushed but animated argument.

Lulu said, “How’d you get past the wards?”

“I had to make sure you two were safe,” she said. “I don’t care what they do to me. Come on. We can camp in the safe zone and figure out what’s happening later. I need you safe now.”

Lulu looked to Koko, who sized Killian up like a butcher sizing up a hog. Finally, he said, “Okay,” and started crawling out of the tiny cote.

He and Lulu actually suffered her careful grasp, carrying them out of there. Still clinging to each other as they clung to her for stability. Something momentous had happened, she knew it. What exactly it was could wait until these two had all they could eat and a proper rest back at camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Timeline-accurate gender. Lulu realises the truth about herself later on.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dualityandsuch said:  
> “Have you seen my hoodie?” “Nooo.” “You’re wearing it, aren’t you?” - Baby Birds AU

Killian never thought she’d miss the time when the twins were too scared and doubtful to express themselves. She even remembered the day that they felt comfortable enough about their new home to actually fight in front of her.

Now, however…

“Koko, have you seen my hoodie?”

“Noooo…”

Lulu leaned over the back of the couch to glare at her brother. Who was nice and snug in a slightly-oversized red hoodie and relaxing with a book. “You’re wearing it, aren’t you?”

“Prove it.”

That she did, leaning over and yanking the hoodie off over her brother’s head. “Ha! It has an L on the tag! Mine!”

“That’s the brand, goofus, not your initial! Give it!”

“It’s my brand!”

“Is not!”

“Is too!”

Killian found the other, identical red hoodie hanging innocently in a closet. She brought it over to the burgeoning fight. “You have  _exactly the same clothes,”_  she told them. “Look at this. Does it matter whose is whose?”

Two pairs of mismatched eyes glared at her. On one hand, they weren’t afraid of her any more. On the other hand… they weren’t afraid of her any more. “Yes,” they chorused.

“It’s got all my personal warm on it,” argued Koko. “It’s got rarity value now.”

“Got your stink on it,” countered Lulu. “That makes it devalued.”

“We’re  _twins._  We got the same body stink.”

“Not since I got my parts changed.”

“Do not!”

“All right,” Killian headed that one off. “Chill. Both of you.”

“Easy now I’m freezing my niblets off,” complained Koko.

“Learn to retain your own body heat,” sniped Lulu.

“Okay. Give me that.” Killian gestured for the garment of contention. She’d shuffled garments before and each got them to pick one, but that solution was not working in the long term. Therefore, when she had both hoodies, she took them out of the room.

She didn’t give the twins time to get scared, returning with her own red hoodie. She ballooned it over their surprised heads and snugged both shocked little noggins through the neck.

“Now you get to share  _one_  hoodie until you can agree on whose is whose,” she said. “No hopping out of there until you get along.”

The hardest part was not laughing at them as realisation dawned that they had to work together to do anything at all.

Killian expected them to settle for the first coat they could grab, each, and thereby escape their situation. But these were  _the twins._  They never did anything halfway. Inside of an hour, the argument about coats was forgotten in favour of becoming some kind of two-headed beastie and making up a reign of terror over their toys.

Well. One way or another, they  _were_  getting along…


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:  
> Hey, what if in the Baby Birds AU, a really nice teacher like Mak tries to stop Ango from stinking because she was raised that way and when confronted about it she apologizes to Ango and wants to learns more. AKA, let an adult be ignorant without being mean.

[AN: *stimming, not stinking. Three Bronx Cheers for autocorrect]

Angus McDonald, fresh adoptee of the Fangbattles, skipped into his new class as if he was walking on air. When he walked out, it was under a metaphorical raincloud and the hunch-shouldered attitude of someone who would much rather be condemned to death than go back into that one room again.

Of course the twins noticed in a cold second, homing in on easy tells like a sudden stillness and quiet in a formerly exuberant boy. Gone was the happy, infodumping chatterbox and in his place was a sullen doppelganger. A ghost that the family had thought they banished with love and encouragement.

Koko and Lulu took him in between them and made an Angus Sandwich with each twin as half of the 'bun'. They tried purring for him. They tried gently twining the curls of his hair. They tried Being With him. They even tried getting him to blow on dandelion puffs or thistle seeds.

It was no use. Angus had become a block.

It was worse than when he'd been a ward of the orphanage. He'd retreated into himself, there, too... but they expected a modicum of interaction. This time, he'd shut off from even the safest and friendliest interactions.

Koko, the more sensitive of the twins, had tears spilling from his eyes. Fat, thick, plentiful ones that wouldn't stop. Lulu twirled a lock of her hair and recited the silly name rhyme that used to make him giggle.

"Ango McDango dance the fandango, eat up a mango and tango with me..." she singsonged. "Your coat we can hango up over the frango, this song we have sango for you and for we..."

Not even the vaguest twitch of a smile. This was bad.

They pulled their coats up over their heads and made a sort of coat tent that shut out a lot of light and petted his hands and whispered validation into his tiny, cute, round humanman ears.

"We love you," and, "It's going to be okay," and, "We want to help," and, when it all got too frightening, "Please come back to us?"

Angus didn't pet their hands, or say, "I'm okay," even when he wasn't. He just sat there and breathed and stared at nothing. Occasionally, he would blink, but he otherwise showed no further signs of coming back out.

Not even 'painting' his skin with the tips of their braids would lure him back into the world.

Someone tapped Koko on his shoulder. He emerged from their tent and so did Lulu. They were both in tears and beside themselves with worry. It was Miss Mak'arune. Thee nicest, friendliest teacher in the entire world.

"Did you miss the bell? It's time to go into class."

Angus moved. He picked up his hands from his knees and interlaced his fingers and squeezed his hands together so hard that the skin went white.

Koko put it together in two seconds. "Did you tell our Angus to have Quiet Hands?"

Lulu had her hands over her mouth. It was like finding out that the Erastide Hare ate unwary children instead of hiding colourful eggs for the spring festival. Or that Father Candles stole the toys of poor children to gift them to the rich. It just could not be possible. "You didn't," Lulu felt like bursting into tears and running all the way home. "Please tell me you didn't. I thought you were nice..."

Miss Mak'arune crouched down so she was on their eye-line. "It's policy. Noisy hands distract the other students and we have to keep everything in line so everyone can learn. It's a simple process and it doesn't hurt..."

Koko was on his feet in instants. "WHY DON'CHA CUT OUT HIS TONGUE 'CAUSE HE TALKS TOO MUCH?" he screamed. "IT'S THE SAME THING!" Then he scooped up Ango into his arms and ran and ran and ran. He knew Lulu would be close behind. That was the way the world worked.

They only got a mile away from the school gate before their legs flagged and the stress of everything overwhelmed them. Lulu found a pocket in the briars where they could hide and at least plot their next move or, like Koko did, just kind of fold up and cry about everything bad that had just happened.

Lulu tried to plot their next move with Koko going to pieces and Angus just... not present. They clearly couldn't go back to school. Not with a Quiet Hands policy. They couldn't go home. Principal Davenport would have called their Moms by now. Which meant that they couldn't go home.

Koko cried himself out and sighed. "Well, it was a nice home while it lasted," he said. He must have reached the same conclusion far, far sooner than Lulu had. He always went with the worst alternative first, as it saved time. "Where next? Phandalin? Halverdale? North Haverbrook?"

"Home would be nice," said Mama Carey. Of course she'd found them. She was a Rogue, and knew every trick. Including, as evident, how to sneak up on all of them and listen in to what there was of the conversation. "But I get you're upset. I'm listening if you wanna talk."

Angus was still a block, and the twins babbled out everything they knew. It was just as bad as the first days, Mama. Remember when he shut down? Like a whole week and he was just... he was block Angus. Not doing nothing, you remember? It's happening again 'cause of how they made him do Quiet Hands. It's evil, Mama. That school is straight up evil.

Lightning briefly crackled behind her teeth. Mama Carey took ten deep breaths and walked off to make a few Stone calls.

"Mama's here," Lulu tried. "She'll keep you safe like last time. Remember? Mama and Mom kept you outta the bad place."

Angus' eyes moved, very briefly. He was hiding deep inside, and that was his first peek back into the outside.

Mama came back. She said, "Okay. We're all meeting up with the Principal, Miss Mak'arune, and Mom, back at the school. We're going to sort this out for the good of all. I won't let you get hurt again, okay?"

* * *

 

Angus rocked gently in his seat. Lulu and Koko were on either side of him and Mom and Mama were on either side of them, helping him feel safe. He still clutched at his elbows when Miss Mak'arune entered the room and whimpered a little. The twins closed up around him and Koko growled a little.

Principal Davenport sat on a desk and tented his fingers. "Let's talk," he said. "I understand that young Mr McDonald has had a significant upset in regards to... quiet hands..."

"It's despicable," said Mom Killian. "It's teaching autistic kids that they can't express themselves. It's the worst of oppression."

"We're gonna need a week of Intensive Interaction just to get him back to normal," said Mama.

"Intensive...?" Miss Mak'arune echoed. "I've never heard of anything else other than ABA... it came highly recommended in all the papers..."

"Yeah, highly recommended by all those who hate autistic kids," said Lulu. "It's people who believe that kids like Angus are burdens who think that that sort of stuff is actually good."

"Look what it did to him," said Koko. "He's blocking the world. He's scared to say or do anything with anyone or anything."

"They used to do something similar when he was in the orphanage," said Mama. "It was horrible. Horrible."

Miss Mak'arune had gone red. Her eyes were overflowing. "Ohmygoodness, ohmygoodness," she whimpered. "I had no idea, I'm so sorry. Angus, sweetie, I never meant any harm... I swear. I thought I was doing good. I know I was wrong. Sir. We have to learn better ways. Now."

Principal Davenport was a man of few words. He listened to all of this with tented fingers and an intense expression. He finally said, "I agree. Let's listen to the people who know the most about this issue. All of them."

* * *

 

It took a month. One week for Angus to come back into being himself. Three weeks for the moms to gather some experts, books, and evidence, and create a special presentation for the teaching staff at Miller's.

Angus was a willing participant in some of the Interaction methods. Education about what Stimming was, and meant, and how it was a means of expression for some. How to read an Autistic kid, when they didn't always show the best of emotions or show them consistently with neurotypical means of reading.

The most important lesson, the best lesson, was that an Autistic kid didn't have to be a burden, if one was willing to take a journey into their world.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LadyVin on Chapter 7 of Nestlings  
> Can we see the twins in the orphanage before they got adopted?

The tiny Elves struggled in the arms of the burly Guardsman. They were too small, thin, and weak to succeed in escaping his grapple roll. That didn't stop them from trying. They were identically filthy, identically dressed in clothes that were one good wash away from falling apart, and identically hostile. They bit. They scratched. They kicked. They howled and yowled like wild things.

The administrator stared at them and tried to imagine the home that would let them get into this state. Possibly an underaged Elf trying to live like a welfare queen, then discovering that the myth never matched the reality.

"Found 'em scrounging food in the middens outside Rockport," said the guard. "They haven't said anything intelligible since we caught 'em."

Just in case, the administrator activated his Amulet of Understanding. Nope. Those howls and screeches were just animal noises. They were wild little things. Society would be doing them a favour by taking them in and teaching them all the ways to behave properly.

* * *

 

The bathwater was tepid. Lulu had fought them every single time they took him[1] away from his brother. This time was no different. Koko, one tub over, was fighting them too. It made no difference. The people here had strong grips and seemed to know what their next move was.

Someone held them still with spells and someone else shore all the hair off their heads, tossing it aside like trash.

Someone forced them into thin, grey clothes that were almost worn to whispers, but were still better than the rags they'd been in.

One said, "Naughty children go in the Quiet Room," as they shoved Koko inside a small, dark chamber and locked the door. Lulu could only hear the screaming from that point, even when taken far, far away from it. Some of the screaming was his own.

Someone spoke Elven, though a very simple form of it. Like a grand-uncle talking to a little one just learning their words.  _"Poor little one, so upset. Tell me your sad, sad tale, sweet baby."_

Lulu knew better words than that.  _"I'm not a baby. We want to go to our mom. You can't keep us. We have family."_

This caused some mild alarm amongst the grownups, and some overlapping murmuring. Someone said, in shaky Elven,  _"Where being family yours?"_

Lulu rolled his eyes and said, "We speak Common," and almost gagged at the sighs of relief. Lulu wanted to bite them and get thrown into the dark like Koko had been. "Our family's in Tre-Llew Ddion. We're tryin'a get back. We wanna go home."

Mumbling and murmuring and someone dragged him away from the mumbling crowd and slammed him into a bunk bed that stank like a tanner's bowl[2]. There was not a square inch on it that was dry. Lulu was told to stay in that bed until dawn or else. In eight hours, the grownups would tell these three-year-olds that everyone they knew was dead.

Their first day at the orphanage was off to a terrific start.

* * *

 

Breakfast was thin gruel. Lunch and dinner was watery stew. Good kids, the myth went, could get a dessert that was basically sugar and flour with some kind of flavour waved over the construction vat and named 'pudding'. Except little Elves could not have processed sugar on account of The Trouble. Therefore, all sweet things were forbidden them.

Koko clung to Lulu every chance he got. Sometimes with a grip that hurt the both of them. He could calm down more than a little if he filled his nose with Lulu's scent instead of the perpetual ammonia aroma that seemed to pervade even the eternally cold floors of this place.

The grownups here were uncaring, and horrible in their own way, but at least they were trying to look after umpty-dozen homeless kids. The older kids? The bigger kids? They were worse. They  _knew_  what life was like in this place and then made the decision to make it worse for everyone smaller and weaker than them.

He kept getting into trouble.

Which kept getting him into the Quiet Room. It stank of mould and blood and (of course) piss. Everything here stank of piss. The baths, the beds, the sheets. Even the desert of a yard smelled of piss. The food stank of it, too. But there was a worse humiliation:

Assessment.

They took him away from Lulu and striped him bare and made him stand on a cold table and moved him around like a puppet and shore his head bald and poked and prodded and asked questions he never knew the right answers to and put him on things and took him off again and pressed him with icy cold instruments and made faces that made him want to cry.

Just when he thought they'd let him hold Lulu again, just when he had his twin in sight... they'd take Lulu away and make him scream until they threw him back in the Quiet Room again.

It took him less than a month to get The Cough.

It started light. A persistent tickle in the back of his throat that no water could soothe away. It soon graduated into a bark, with a rattling wheeze in his lungs. Then it became a bubbling roar that stole his breath and made him cough up enormous hunks of grey-green slime.

Time in the sun room made it ease off, but there was never enough sun, and he was always messing up and in the Quiet Room again. Somehow, these people managed to figure out that Lulu made a worse ruckus to try and keep Koko out of there. So they said that if Lulu didn't behave, Koko would get the room anyway.

The first winter there almost killed him.

He remembered stringing necklaces together for the fundraiser, something even some of the babies could do, in the eternal chill of the crafting room. He remembered sneezing so hard that he almost cracked his dome piece open on the hard stone table. Then The Cough took him over and he could barely get enough air for the next spate of coughs and the world went even greyer and then it went black...

The next thing he knew, he was in the hospital wing with a Fantasy Nebuliser delivering sour medicine straight to his lungs. Propped up on damp, ammonia-scented pillows and covered over in quilts and blankets so heavy that every breath was a battle. They only let Lulu stay with him because he was calmer with his twin there.

_Aunty had said they had been born holding hands. Baby Lulu had cried and cried and kicked and fussed until Baby Koko was born, and their tiny hands were re-united. It took a long time for that to happen, which might be why Koko was always victim to the cold, and prone to catching every disease around..._

He spent all winter in that Hospital Wing. Rallying when Lulu was near and fading when he wasn't.

He was better in the spring sunshine. He thrived in the summer's heat - even enough to be allowed outside for running around and shrieking with the others, but The Cough was always there. Lurking. Waiting to strike at an inopportune moment.

Midsummer came, and in lieu of a birthday cupcake, the twins were rationed a square inch of honeycomb. Lulu got it on Midsummer day and Koko got his the day after. They both chewed the remaining wax for the rest of the day, until an indomitable nurse pried their jaws apart and forced it from their mouths at the end of the day.

* * *

 

Lulu didn't want to watch Koko fading away, but he still faded anyway. Lulu started treasuring every touch. Every moment with him. Every word that didn't come with The Cough chasing the air out of his lungs. Lulu even started behaving, doing his best, just so Koko would have more time out of the Quiet Room.

This place was killing him. They both knew it. Lulu never wanted to say it, hear it, or even think it, but they both knew.

Any chill breeze could knock the air right out of him.

The slightest puff of dust or pollen could make him keel right over and cough and cough and  _cough_  until he nearly turned blue and his eyes rolled back and his limbs trembled and...

And they'd take him away. Carry him off. Take him out of the sun and never understanding that he needed to be warm. Please.  _Please._  He's always cold, you have to understand, Lulu got all the warmth and Lulu could give him some and help him get better and...

He barely survived the second winter in that place.

Lulu could only rest with one ear on Koko's chest. Listening for the reassuring lub-dub between the ominous rattles of the next breath in. Underneath the steady rattle and hiss of the Fantasy Nebuliser as it made clouds of medicated mist that helped Koko breathe just that tiny bit easier.

They didn't want Lulu resting with Koko in the same bed. Hygiene, they said. Rules, they said. They could not, would not understand that Koko could only rest properly with Lulu there, holding his hand and giving him warmth.

"Next winter," he rasped as Lulu helped him to the Sun Room, where he could watch infant after infant get adopted by couple after couple while they got left behind. "Next winter, I'm going to die."

Lulu couldn't say,  _Horseshit._  Not with the grownups monitoring their every word. Not with the threat of the Quiet Room hanging over their heads. The only bright side was that Koko was too sick to be thrown in there any more, so now they had to chuck Lulu in there instead. Lulu said, "Dung," because that was allowed. "Dung twice. Dung times infinity. We're gonna get out. We're gonna make it."

"Next winter," he repeated, breath gurgling. "Next winter for sure."

Lulu didn't want to hear it. Didn't want it said. Didn't want it thought. The result was the word 'no' being the only word to come out. Softly at first, but with increasing volume and vigour, as if saying it often enough, loudly enough, and with enough determination could make his will reality.

"Sorry, Lulu," Koko whispered. He fell to coughing again, and the duty nurse scooped him up and sat him in the window seat in the sunshine, and forced the Fantasy Nebuliser onto him.

Lulu raged and ranted and screamed, "NO!" at the universe until they dragged him away and into the mouldy dark of the Quiet Room, where spores and ammonia both attempted to ruin Lulu's lungs as well. If Koko was going, Lulu was going to go with him. Lulu wouldn't eat, wouldn't rest, wouldn't do a single thing that they didn't force on him, would bait them and  _make_  them throw him in the Quiet Room again and again and again until the rot invaded Lulu's lungs as well.

It wasn't fair! It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, it wasn't  _fair!_  Koko was Lulu's whole heart, the reason Lulu kept going even when it felt like the world was going to collapse in on them both. Even when everything else was turning rotten, Koko was  _there._

Lulu even raged at the Raven Queen herself.  _He's mine, he's mine. You can't take him, you can't. I need him. He's mine..._  He even stuck his head into the mouldiest, mildewiest, most pee-stinking corner and sucked in the spores. It didn't work. No cough came.

Lulu sat there anyway, breathing in befouled air and sobbing so hard his whole body shook.

Hours later, when Lulu's throat was too raw to make a sound and his soul wrung dry of tears, some orderlies dragged him back to his brother, where an Orc and a Dragonborn were signing papers...  _and Koko was smiling in a weird, weird way._

He said, in  _Us, "Looks like we get outta here before I die."_

Lulu ran over and hugged him tight.  _"That's what I love about you, Koko. Your unending optimism."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Headcannon-compliant gender identity. She realises later who she really is.  
> [2] Tanners in ancient Rome [and likely other places] used to have a huge bowl/vat where (usually) male passers-by were invited to pee. Urine was very useful to the tanning process and this was one of the more... direct methods of collecting it. [insert "the more you know" gif]


End file.
